The Legacy of Speaking Up (Jacquelyn Santiago)

What happens when speaking up becomes more than a single moment of courage?

In Episode 11 of the Casa de María Publisher Podcast — Write… Reflect… Reimagine, Dr. Vilma Luz Cabán sits down with nationally recognized violence-prevention leader and youth advocate Jacquelyn Santiago for a conversation about voice, service, and the legacy that grows from speaking when silence once felt safer. Jacquelyn Santiago is a respected author, community leader, and advocate whose work centers youth empowerment, organizational leadership, and personal development. Jacquelyn has made multiple visits to Washington, D.C., to share her expertise in the violence prevention field with The White House and the U.S. Department of Justice.

This conversation unfolds in Hartford, Connecticut, as Casa de María Publisher prepares for the public literary event Grace & Boldness: Latina Voices for Change at Yale University in Dwight Hall: Center for Public Service and Social Justice. The episode begins with the image of vibrant murals rising from brick walls across Hartford — one of them bearing Jacquelyn Santiago’s face, voted on by the Frog Hollow neighborhood itself as a reflection of her decades of work with youth and families navigating violence, grief, and systemic inequities. 

But long before national recognition, policy conversations, or murals painted across Hartford neighborhoods, there was a young girl navigating questions of identity, belonging, and worth.

In this episode, Vilma and Jacquelyn explore the deeper journey behind public leadership:

• how a voice forms when silence once felt like safety
• the tension of cultural identity and belonging                                                                  • the moment when personal healing becomes service
• how storytelling disrupts systems and liberates people
• and what legacy truly means when communities reflect courage back to those who speak

Together, Vilma and Jacquelyn reflect on a powerful truth: Legacy is rarely built in a single moment. It is built quietly in different spaces and in the decisions to speak when silence would be easier.

Listen to Episode 11: The Legacy of Speaking Up

Voice does more than tell a story. Voice builds a future.

FROGHOLLOW MURAL

HARTFORD HEROES MURAL

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome to Casa de Maria. This is a space for writers, artists, and cultural storytellers who believe that our words carry memory, meaning, and responsibility. Here, we gather to reflect on craft, honored lived experience, and explore ethical pathways to publishing and creative growth. I am your host, Dr. Vimanus Karal, founder of Casa de Maria Publisher. And I am grateful you are here.

SPEAKER_03 0:49

Welcome back! Today's episode is titled The Legacy of Speaking Up. And this conversation begins not only in this podcast, but on brick walls in Hartford, Connecticut. I am recording this episode here in Hartford as we prepare for our upcoming public literary event. Grace and Boldness, Latina Voices for Change, sponsored by Casa de Maria Publisher, and taking place on the Yale University campus at Dwight Hall Center for Public Service and Social Justice. It feels fitting to be here in Hartford, Connecticut, because in two different Hartford neighborhoods, vibrant murals rise against brick. We see their bold color, steady gaze, and unmistakable presence. In the Puerto Rican neighborhood on Park Street, sweeping reds, whites, and blues of the Puerto Rican flag stretch behind Jacqueline Santiago's warm face, vibrant smile, as well as her grounded, unflinching spirit. That mural was voted on by the Frog Hollow neighborhood itself. I had the great honor of witnessing this mural when I walked with a group of Latino authors as part of the Hartford Puerto Rican Parade in September 2025. After we finished the parade, Jacqueline and I were walking through another part of the Hartford City, and we spotted the Hartford Heroes Mural. I remember seeing her face and taking in the moment as I studied the mural. There she was, among other change makers who have shaped Hartford's story. There were leaders, visionaries, and community builders. Jacqueline's image is a testimony of her contribution. For twenty-five years, she has worked alongside young people and families navigating violence, grief, and systems that too often overlook them. Through her leadership at Compass Youth Collaborative, she has stood in hospital rooms, courtrooms, and living rooms bearing witness to both loss and resilience. But long before murals, long before national recognition, there was a little girl who learned that silence felt like safety. Like so many of us, she carried messages about staying quiet, about shrinking, about enduring without complaint. She has written about hiding pain, questioning her worth, and navigating what it means to feel both too Puerto Rican in some spaces and not Puerto Rican enough in others. And yet she chose to speak for healing, for justice, for the generations watching. In her writing, she reminds us that silence protects systems, but storytelling liberates people. This episode is about what happens when speaking up doesn't stop after one act of courage, but becomes a way of living. When voice becomes service, when a community reflects your courage back to you in vibrant color on brick. This is what legacy looks like. I'm so grateful to have Jacqueline Santiago join our podcast today. Jackie, welcome to this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Thank you so much for having me, Vilma, and I am honored to be here with Casa de Maria Publisher today.

SPEAKER_03 5:28

Thank you. Jackie, as I read your reflection in preparation for our upcoming event at Yale, I kept thinking about how long a voice takes to form, especially when silence was once the way to feel safe. There's something powerful about sitting here right now, not in front of a mural or a podium, but simply in conversation. Before we talk about recognition or legacy, I want to return to the person behind it all. When you think about that younger version of yourself, the little girl who learned that staying quiet felt safer.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Wow, that's such a deep question. As a little girl, I wished that I had felt safe in my community of women, that I had been able to tell them that something was happening to me, that I was being hurt. But the only examples that I had back then were of women enduring in the face of anything. That in order to feel worthy, you needed to be strong, that you needed to be accommodating, and you almost needed to be invisible in order to really get the respect and the love. And so I didn't feel like I could genuinely reach out to someone and say, this happened to me. Not to mention, there's so many hurt little girls all over the world that really feel responsible for what happened to them. And if I had known back then that we as women are powerful beyond measure, that we can overcome anything, especially when we share our stories and we're brave enough to talk about what has happened to us, that we can grow from there. And I wish I had known that as a young girl. I I know that now, but I didn't know that then.

SPEAKER_03 7:37

Wow, thank you for sharing that. I know that um accommodating. I I understand that value. It's a survival mechanism to be able to keep things status quo a bit and to help us feel safe as young girls. So you um were operating in a way to remain safe in retrospect. Um so many times we feel that when we come into spaces, we're we're not enough. And uh as young women, as even young girls, right, we're learning what that enough should look like in the eyes of other people. Um when I was reading your piece, uh you spoke about feeling too Puerto Rican in some spaces and not Puerto Rican enough in others. How did navigating that tension shape the voice that you eventually claimed now as an adult?

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Vilma, Vilma, Vilma, I tell you that this is something that I'm still learning to navigate. I can tell you that being a Puerto Rican in this country, especially in Afro-Latina, an Afro-Boricwa like me, I'm you know, brigañita. And when I beautiful brigañita and I when I walk into spaces, people know that I am not the average, right? And so there are all these questions about are you black? Are you white? Are you white and black? Are you Jamaican? Are you this? Are you that? There's so many questions, and never, never do they ever, ever guess Puerto Rican. And I tell people, you must not know what a Puerto Rican looks like, because they would always tell me, Well, you don't look Puerto Rican, and I said, My sister's blonde with blue eyes, light skin. My brother is trigañito with pelo lacio. I mean straight black hair and green eyes. Me and my brothers are twins, you know, some of trigañito con what people would say pelo malo, you know, but we have that Afrocentric hair, and so uh there is always questions about where I'm from. So in America, I was never American enough. I don't belong as an American, it's clearly something else, Puerto Rican. When I go to the island, you know, and this became really evident to me. I had a trip that I took with the University of Connecticut, and I'm learning more about my island and our heritage, and we're going there to protest the bombings in Vieques. And I'm standing there as a proud Puerto Rican, and they said to me, but I was like, What do you mean I'm not Puerto Rican? And they were like, You were not born here, you are not Puerto Rican. And that stung my heart, like to this day. And I said, I'm over here fighting because this is what I feel my ancestors are from, this is my land, this is all I've ever known. And you know, and you're telling me that I'm not Puerto Rican, and in America, they tell me that I'm not American, so what am I?

unknown 10:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

And so I essentially said, I'm a different version of Puerto Rican, that's what it is, you know. I and and I've adapted to that culturally, you know. I said, I understand that I wasn't born there, I don't bring the same experience, but I also, because I was born here and I have heritage coming from my parents, I'm also not the traditional American. We do parrandas, coquito, pasteles, all the food, I do all the dancing, I do, I have all of this history that I've learned about my people. So I'm different. I'm a different version of Puerto Rican, but I love the fact that I have the blood. And that will never change.

SPEAKER_03 11:40

Well, I what I hear is that you straddled both spaces and you navigated between that tension quite well by claiming your identity in both spaces. Aki i allá, being part of the beautiful diaspora, being part of the Connecticut Boricwa contingent, trying to ratify change. And you shape that voice, I'm sure, as you worked in those two different spaces. So a little bit of code switching that many times when I travel, go back and forth, I sometimes feel that life is not absolute. We don't live in one space. And I was trying to force myself when I rematriated to feel I resented the term, oh, tu eres de allá fuera. And I struggled with that. And I am embracing that. I am the aya idaca, and I'm going to serve as that bridge to link those that are nostalgic about ratifying a change as well as amplifying voices on both on both sides. That's our goal. And as I think about service, I think about the way you've activated voice and action for your service, you've been doing this for more than two decades, where your voice has shown up in different spaces. I mentioned in the beginning I said hospital rooms, courtrooms, and living rooms. When did you realize that your voice wasn't just about personal healing, but about service?

SPEAKER_00 13:14

This has been a lifelong journey. And for me, I always got great pleasure from helping people. And I get that from my heritage, from my family. As far back as I can remember, misabuelos, me, me, mamma, me papa, all of them were in service of helping one another because we realized that we couldn't make it by ourselves. It really took a full village for us to make it in the United States. And literally, when I was old enough to do it, that's what drew me. I went from Trinity College as being a student, and I went from there and got an internship. I volunteered because I couldn't stand the fact that I was just in the space of privilege and wasn't able to give back. And through that process, it was reciprocal because I was giving to community, but community was pouring so much more into me. And I gained so much energy and strength from being there in those spaces. The amount of resilience that this community has shown me, the amount of love that this community has shown me is nothing that I could ever pay back. And so it really, I don't want to say it comes natural because there's a lot of work that goes into this, but when I pour into service and into other people, it's because I am getting so much more in return. And I'm loving every step of the journey that I have with them. And so for me, it's it's just the beauty of a beautiful struggle that we go through these struggles together, that we, the more things we go through together, the more that we evolve together. And that's been a part of our culture since the beginning of time. Um, it really does liberate people when we can go through things and make it out together. So to me, I'm just this is this is a healing journey, um, but it's along the way, we heal each other. Yes, we heal each other. That's that's the best way that I can put it.

SPEAKER_03 15:31

I love that. There's power in collective healing, and you know, we talk about how not only did it kind of cycle from being personal healing, but being that link now to community healing, which I think is so beautiful. You know, at Yale's event, we're gonna talk about how breaking silence is, you know, there's power in storytelling because the storytelling is what liberates people. And when I think about what you've written, how silence protects systems. You know, in your years of service, there must have been a moment when you found that voice and that you actually can see that shift happen. Um, when did you realize that silence was protecting existing systems? And that the moment you realized, wait a minute, I can actually make this change.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

So I'll start on the micro level first, you know, my personal uh journey. And for me, the longer that I stayed quiet, the more that I hid it from everyone because I hurt I hid the pain that happened to me from my parents, no one but myself. And as a five-year-old girl, to carry that all the way to like I was 25 when I first was able to even utter the first word, I was hurting myself. Every time I felt like I had to hide this pain, I was hiding a piece of myself. I was not allowing that community to come in and help me heal, like we usually are accustomed to doing as community. And my mom believed that I was a little girl that was just kind of getting a little rebellious or a little too shy. I didn't want to get, you know, be involved in all the things, but these things started shaping who I was becoming because I was doing it by myself. And as I grew up, you can tell me anything. I was so independent, I was like the mother, the caretaker, the everything, because I had grown up to be hardened, you know, to the world, and I wanted to do things a certain way. And while I'll never regret that, uh I there's a resilience about that. There is a lot of hurt that I suffered unnecessarily, a lot of trauma that I'm still working on through this day. And I think that every time that we're quiet, and you can see it in the politics that are happening all over the world right now, every time we're quiet, it's usually those people that have less means, less resources that don't have a voice at the table. And we are the most impacted people. I work in violence prevention, and I often tell them I want black and brown voices at the table. I want them to be able to share their stories in a meaningful way because it's like the spider is the only one that can fix its own web, right? We're the only ones that know have experienced the pain of slavery, of racism, of poverty, all those things. We have solutions too. And so I think that this whole process of just being quiet and just saying, well, let the next person do it. It's fine, my voice won't matter anyway, just continues to build a system where we are oppressed, versus storytelling, where we can say, Do you know that African American and Puerto Ricans are the number one most murdered population between ages 24 to 28 years old? Like we're losing our people. If we start talking about reasons and developing systems, then we can start liberating people and we can start making changes and advocating for this work to be different. Um, all across every field, not just violence prevention.

SPEAKER_03 19:31

So, what I'm hearing is that silence um can be equal or synonymous to being complicit in a way, if I'm if I'm hearing that correctly, and that many times people feel that silence is a way to keep the peace.

unknown 19:46

Right.

SPEAKER_03 19:47

Um, which I totally understand that being the case. When I think about uh your voice and how that shift happened, you you are now holding space to advocate for others, for our youth, for communities, for women. I think it's just beautiful to see how you have really brought in the fold community. When um I saw your face at that beautiful Park Street mural when we were in the parade that I mentioned earlier, I was so touched. You know, I think about how it was voted for by the Frog Hollow neighborhood itself. What did that teach you about how a life of speaking up echoes beyond you?

SPEAKER_00 20:33

It's an incredible honor. I can tell you that when I first heard about it, I said, no, not me. That couldn't have been me. You you guys voted for me? Why? And then I knew exactly why. Because for many years I have been leading people. Uh not only have I led in community, but I say that I have two missions, right? My first mission is is my team. They haven't had the opportunities, they've lived the same lives that these kids have, and they need a second chance so that they can live to their fullest potential. So then they can reach and and lift up these young people who are facing death or incarceration. And it takes people who have been there and done that to be able to lift others as they rise. And it made sense then. It made all the sense that we are in the communities, we're walking these streets, we're meeting people in hospital rooms, we're meeting people in courtrooms in the worst times of their lives. When most people will be like, Well, you know, the the that's the way the cookie crumbles, that's that's life that happens, and people turn and they go do something else, or they turn and they have fun, or they turn and they're like, Well, you you might have made some better choices, you you might not be here, right? In those worst moments, we tend to show up. And that mural doesn't represent just me. You know, seeing my face there is just symbolic of the work that we've been doing for over 20 years. And that's what that means to me. That people recognize humanity, that they recognize compassion, that they understand that we are of the community, not fearful of the community, and that we're not gonna judge you for your worst moment.

SPEAKER_03 22:33

I love that. I I feel that that mural is kind of like a reminder of a promise. Um, your pro part of that promise is to tap into that promise. And their part of the promise is to come to you when they need it. What a beautiful promise that is. Wow, such great legacy work. Um, it's not easy when you think about legacy. You know, um, what do you hope endures beyond you at this stage of your advocacy work, 25 years of this amazing organization? What do you find that can now go beyond you?

SPEAKER_00 23:12

I think above all, I would like compassion and love to be beyond me. I want people to understand that you don't need an education, you don't need all the fancy bells and whistles. You need to show up. And you need to show up with love and compassion. Because as I mentioned earlier, you do not want to be judged for the worst thing that you've ever done in your life. And I want people to know that I am vested in community. I am vested in loving people and making sure that they have a better future, not just for themselves, but for the generations that come after them. So I would say that love above everything else.

SPEAKER_03 23:54

Oh, I love it. When I think about another proud Puerto Rican of ours, Bad Bunny, when he said love wins, right? Love wins, not hate. So I love that that you're thinking, you're so forward-centered in your thinking. If a young girl hears this conversation, a girl who feels invisible or unworthy, what do you hope she carries with her today?

SPEAKER_00 24:22

You are not alone, you are not broken, you are beautiful and worthy exactly as you are. And lean in on your other community, your family, your friends, your other women in your in your space, because there has to be at least one person that you can lean on to support you through the tough times. But you do not need to feel like you are unworthy, like you need to change, or you need to become something that you are not or that doesn't match with your values. You are totally capable. Uh, and that's the message that I would leave young girls with. So many times we're in search of love, and we're in search of all of these unattainable, unrealistic Hollywood images. Um, there's so many pressures from being just the perfect size, or your face and your lips, and you're looking a certain way. And at the end of the day, the one thing that will matter is your heart and what you did for other people. You know, so um stand tall, stand proud. You've got this.

SPEAKER_03 25:36

Oh my goodness, Jackie. I was very well prepared for this podcast, but I failed to bring my tissue. So you have you have to forgive me. I want to thank you for your honesty, for your steadiness, and for the years that you've spent choosing voice, even when silence once felt safer. In this episode's podcast description, I'm gonna share those links that are gonna take our audience to see both murals. You will unveil those on Saturday with our audience at the Latina Voices for Change events, grace and boldness. Well, as we close this conversation, I just keep returning to those brick walls in Hartford that hold those images, to color rising against concrete, to a community reflecting back courage to one of its own, to the image of a woman who once learned to shrink, but now is standing confident above Park Street. But what strikes me most is this legacy is not built in a single moment. It is built in our community, in collective sharing, in all the different rooms and spaces where you make the decision to speak when it would be easier not to. It's in choosing truth over comfort, in showing up again and again. And the murals are visible, a beautiful promise, a reminder. But the real legacy lives in the young people who found their voice, in the girls who now know they have to stay quiet. They don't have to stay quiet. It's in the communities that feel seen because someone dared to speak up.

SPEAKER_02 27:33

If you are listening today and you have ever felt invisible, if you have ever believed your story was too small, too complicated, or too heavy to hold, let this be your reminder that your voice is not accidental, it is not excessive, and it is never too much. It is necessary. And speaking up even softly, even slowly is how legacy begins. I want to thank you for listening to episode 11, The Legacy of Speaking Up.

SPEAKER_03 28:17

Until next time, keep writing, keep reflecting, and keep reimagining what your voice can build. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

Thank you for spending this time with me. If today's conversation resonated, I invite you to explore our free webinars, writing retreats in Puerto Rico, and our curated anthologies at Casa de Maria Publisher. Your voice matters. Your story deserves care. Until next time, write with intention and courage. Pen your passion. Publish your promise at Casa de Maria Publisher.